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Rogue
This article is a description of the character class '''Rogue'. For a description of the role of rogues within the lore of Warcraft, see Rogue (lore). ''For related articles, see Category:Rogues. Overview The Rogue class is the king of melee DPS. They have access to a wide range of special abilities, which mostly depend upon energy. The mantra of the Rogue is "fastest to kill, fastest to die." Unlike Hunters and Mages who have the ability to deal damage from distance, Rogues must be in close, which often subjects them to tank-like damage input when caught out of stealth. Rogues rely on agility, but should also aim for gear with additional stamina and strength. At the later levels, some rogues opt to use Attack Power. Rogues can only wear leather or cloth armour, cannot wear shields, and can only wield 1-handed weapons (daggers, swords, maces and fist weapons) and ranged weapons. At level 10, they can dual wield two one-handed weapons. At level 20, they gain access to Poisons through a quest. This class is the best for the player who likes to creep up on unsuspecting targets, and in case of problems still has a choice to vanish from sight. Races Rogues can be played by: * Alliance ** Dwarves ** Gnomes ** Humans ** Night Elves * Horde ** Blood Elves ''(Blood Elves are not playable until the release of the 'The Burning Crusade' expansion) ** Orcs ** Trolls ** Undead All races can play the rogue with equal efficiency, but like any class in World of Warcraft, we should take a deeper look into the Racial Traits and how they affect the gameplay of a rogue. * The Forsaken's (undead) ability Will of the Forsaken which allows an undead rogue to get rid of fear, sleep and charm spells(and any in effect) is a huge benefit in PvP when fighting Priests, Warriors or Warlocks. They also can Cannibalize humanoid or undead mobs and players, helping a rogue downtime without wasting bandages or potions. * Night Elves have increased dodge (an extra +1%), increased stealth (equal to a +1,67 with 5/5 Master of Deception) and are tied with Gnomes for the highest base agility in the game. Night Elves possess the power of Shadowmeld, which functions like stealth but the player is unable to move, cannot use openers, and is easier to detect. As of patch 1.11, poisons can be applied in shadowmeld without breaking shadowmeld, and players will no longer receive a message saying "a more powerful ability is active" when attempting to shadowmeld out of stealth. Having the choice between Stealth and Shadowmeld can be handy as they do not share cooldowns. * Gnomes have escape artist, which allows a gnome to escape from a root/snare once every couple of minutes without using vanish. They are also tied with Night Elves for the highest base agility in the game. * Dwarves have Find treasure, which puts chests, clams, etc. on the minimap when active, and stoneform an activated ability that clears poison, disease, and bleed effects. * Humans have 10% increased spirit, allowing for a slightly shorter downtime. Perception, when activated, greatly improves stealth detection which helps one find players or NPCs that are stealthed, prowling, shadowmelded, or sneaking (as of patch 1.9, activating perception no longer breaks stealth). Human rogues also receive +5 to their sword and mace skill allowing higher chance to hit, crit, and helps reduce glancing blows against higher level mobs/players. * Trolls have extra regeneration and 10% of their health regeneration remains active in combat and reduces downtime after you get out of combat (and are living). Berserking, combined with Slice and Dice will give you +45% or +55% (depending on rank) attack speed, greatly increasing base damage output and poison procs, and as of the 1.9 patch, no longer requires you to be the victim of a critical stike before being able to be activated, and is now dependent on how injured the Troll is when they go berserk - faster speed with lower health. For Rogues, the ability requires 10 Energy to activate. Starting Attributes Weapons The Rogue class has a few different weapon choices available. Weapon skills you don't start with can be trained in the appropriate capital cities. Ask a guard for the location of the weapon master and each weapon master will be able to tell you not only what he can teach you but where you need to go to learn the other skills. Weapon Choices Are: *Dagger *Thrown *Swords (One Handed) *Bows *Crossbows *Guns *Maces (One Handed) *Fist Weapons Using different weapons will probably affect the way you apply your talent points in this class. Some abilities, such as backstab and ambush, can only be done with a dagger in your main hand. If you are looking for a melee damage dealer that fights along side a tank but is not the tank, then a sword or mace is probably the weapon for you. If you are looking for a stealthy class that can do amazing damage with opening and finishing abilities then dagger will probably interest you most. Dagger rogues are generally built more for burst damage and favored in PvP, sword and mace rogues are usually built for slightly lower sustained damage. Many rogue abilities are instant attacks based on the weapon damage of your main hand weapon. It is desirable to use a slow main hand weapon as it will increase the effectiveness of your instant abilities. Often, slow weapons with a lower base DPS are more effective than quicker weapons with higher DPS. As of patch 1.8, weapon speed no longer affects instant attacks, which instead use a set multiplier based on the weapon type. Instant attacks using a dagger now use the set number of 1.7, while one-handed weapons such as swords and maces use the set number of 2.4. Having some form of weapon swap macro is very useful for a rogue. Sinister Strikes are more effective with slow weapons, most of which aren't daggers. For example, using a dagger to ambush before switching to a slower main hand weapon for regular combat. This is less useful now that weapon speed effects have been changed in patch 1.8. *Note* Weapons held in offhand while dual-wielding do 1/2 damage, so a macro is very useful if you need to use a dagger-requiring skill such as Gouge then run behind the enemy and do Backstab. Notable weapons Swords *Cruel Barb ilvl 24 (19 required) Bind on Pickup superior sword from Edwin VanCleef in the Deadmines. *Mirah's Song Quest reward from Scholomance *Sword of Omen ilvl 44 (32 required) from quest Into the Scarlet Monastery from Varimathras in the Undercity. *Thrash Blade Quest reward from the Maraudon quest where you need to kill Princess *Vanquisher's Sword ilvl 44 (37 required) from quest Bring the End from Andrew Brownell in the Undercity. *Krol Blade ilvl 56 (51 required) Bind on Equip epic sword. Random world drop. *Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge ilvl 63 (58 required) Bind on Pickup superior sword from Rend Blackhand of Blackrock Spire. *Dal'Rend's Tribal Guardian ilvl 63 (58 required) Bind on Pickup superior sword from Rend Blackhand of Blackrock Spire. *Ravenholdt Slicer Quest reward from Silithus *Brutality Blade ilvl 70 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic sword from Garr in the Molten Core instance. *Vis'Kag the Bloodletter ilvl 74 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic sword from Onyxia from Onyxia's Lair. *Chromatically Tempered Sword ilvl 77 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic sword from Chromaggus in Blackwing Lair. *Ancient Qiraji Ripper ilvl 77 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic sword from Fankriss the Unyielding in Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. Daggers *Talon of Vultros ilvl 26 (21 required), drops off Vultros, a rare monster in Westfall. *Julie's Dagger ilvl 55 (50 required), World Drop *Barman Shanker ilvl 55 (50 required) Bind on Pickup, drops off Plugger Spazzring in the Blackrock Depths instance. *Fang of the Faceless ilvl 68 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic dagger from Hakkar the Soulflayer in the Zul'Gurub instance. *Gutgore Ripper ilvl 69 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic dagger from Garr in the Molten Core instance. *Perdition's Blade ilvl 77 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic dagger from Ragnaros in the Molten Core instance. *Dragonfang Blade ilvl 74 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic dagger from Vaelastrasz the Corrupt in the Blackwing Lair instance. *Core Hound Tooth ilvl 70 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic dagger from Majordomo Executus in the Molten Core instance. also see: Epic dagger analysis Maces *Mass of McGowan ilvl 62 (57 required) Bind on Equip superior mace. Random world drop. *Empyrean Demolisher ilvl 66 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic mace from Kazzak in Blasted Lands. *Sand Polished Hammer ilvl 72 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic mace from Ossirian the Unscarred in Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. Fist Weapons *Thekal's Grasp ilvl 65 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic fist weapon from High Priest Thekal in Zul'Gurub. *Arlokk's Grasp ilvl 65 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic fist weapon from High Priestess Arlokk in Zul'Gurub. *Claw of the Black Drake ilvl 75 (60 required) Bind on Pickup epic fist weapon from Firemaw in Blackwing Lair. Abilities This section provides a taste of the abilities of the rogue. For more detail, see Detailed Rogue Abilities Stealth Rogues have the ability to stealth and become very hard to see. This is not invisibility however. Monsters and players (PvP) can still see you if you don't try to stay behind them. You can increase your sneaking abilities through talents (Master of Deception), this will give you a better chance to not be detected. Monsters that are above your level have a better chance of detecting you. However, a monster of any level will see you if you walk right in front of their face. Also, when a monster is almost near enough to detect you, it will make a noise and look in your direction. As long as you don't get any closer to the monster while it is facing you, it will not detect you, and will continue patrolling after a few seconds (so you can backstab them when they turn to walk away!). At level 22 you also gain the ability to cause a distraction to make monsters look away from your direction so you can sneak up with very little chance of being seen. However, you move slower in stealth depending on the Rank of your skill. You can increase that movement speed with talent points spent on Camouflage - 3% per talent point, topping at 15%. You can also use Sprint while cloaked to increase your speed, not breaking your stealth. Note: Adding Minor Speed enchantment to your boots is important for a Rogue. It's an extra 8% which works in and out of stealth, sometimes critical when trying to get in range of your pvp opponent! Poisons At level 20 you can go on a quest to acquire the Poisons skill. These poisons can then be applied to your weapon to enhance damage or cause other effects. Poisons have both a timer (the amount of time they last) and charges (the number of times they 'go off' before they run out). These are both displayed on the weapons properties when you mouse over the weapon. Note that as of patch 1.10 applying poison will NOT break stealth or shadowmeld. Also note that as of patch 1.11, poisons will remain on weapons through instance zones. Stuns * Cheap Shot Stuns a target for 4 seconds. Must be in stealth to use. This is a very useful opener that usually allows the rogue to get 1 or 2 special attacks in plus auto-attacks before an opponent can respond. * Kidney Shot Kidney shot is an excellent finishing move. It can keep a pvp opponent stunned long enough for you to kill them (Especially if you master a stun-lock). But in PVE it's also a great ability keeping your groupmates alive and interrupting casting! * Gouge A very important incapacitate skill. This is used frequently to essentially 'stun' an opponent allowing you to regenerate some energy, and get behind the gouged opponent(allowing a chance to backstab). * Mace Specialization. Placing talent points in mace specialization under the combat tree gives your attacks with maces a chance to stun your opponent. Players should note that repeatedly stunning another player in a short period of time reduces the normal duration of stuns and eventually a player can become immune to stuns. This is called diminishing returns. Talents * Note: Rogue Talents are up for review Coming Soon in Patch 1.12 Rogue Talents are split into 3 categories: * Assassination * Combat * Subtlety Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Panda Hideout, WoW Vault, and ThottBot, Merciless. See the rogue talents page for further details. See the common Rogue Builds for some ideas to building your Talent Tree. Useful Add-ons This sections lists some of the more helpful mods specifically for the Rogue class. ; EnergyWatch V2 : Displays a progress bar that fills, empties, and refills in time with your energy recharge tick. This can be extremely useful for timing that Cheapshot or Ambush so you tick immediatly and have extra energy for a Gouge etc. ; CCWatch : Displays a progress bar with the duration of your sap, cheap shot, gogue, kidney shot and blind. This is extremely useful to time your attacks, and keep the opponent stun locked. ; RogueAgentSE : Two small buttons at the mini-map displays the current number of blinding powder and flash powder in your bag. This is particular helpful if you often forget to restock those two reagents. ; SpellAlert : Notifies the player when someone begins to cast a spell. This is great since it lets you know when to kick, blind or stun the opponent; quite handy if you prefer not to be polymorphed. ; WeaponQuickSwap : Useful for the rogue who likes to keep something other than a dagger equipped, but doesn't want to lose the use of dagger-based abilities. ; PoisonMaster : Takes the math out of those Shady Dealer visits by allowing you to preselect the number and types of poisons you want to carry, and then automating the materials purchasing / creation of those poisons. These and more rogue-add-ons can be downloaded from Curse Gaming. End-Game Expectations You are the #1 DPSer on the team. Your job is to hit things, and to hit them hard. You will be up in combat a lot of the time. You will also be expected to keep yourself alive with bandages, healthstones, and potions, so you should train your First Aid to 300 as soon as possible. Unfortunately, due to Blizzard's development of end-game instances, many poisons are useless, as well as stunlocking. Also, there are MANY range specific battles where rogues are utterly useless - in those cases, your best bet is to play medic for your healers and to run around and bandage them so they can focus on the tank. Another downfall is end-game itemization, a lot of gear in Molten Core, as well as the backstab book from AQ20, are focused on rogues who use daggers. You can still get away with using swords and maces if you optimize your armor and enchants. See Also * See Rogue Gear Guide for detailed information about choice of rogue equipment. * See Starting a Rogue for some advice when starting out. * See Rogue Sets for discussion of set items for Rogues. * See Rogue Solo List for details how to do what rogues do best, assassinate instance bosses and solo quests. * See Stealth Run for Solo or Duo-able dungeons. Some good info at the official WoW forums: * Rogue FAQ v4 (replies are broken) * Rogue FAQ Replies Thread * Lockpicking FAQ Category:Classes Category:Dwarves Category:Gnomes Category:Humans Category:Night Elves Category:Orcs Category:Trolls Category:Forsaken Category:Alliance classes Category:Horde classes